Keeping rust off your blades

S

Shawn7656

Joined
Feb 15, 2012
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I've been lubing my blades up with Hoppe's 9 Lubricating Oil and I was wondering if this stuff is just a lubricant, or if it helps prevent rust as well. I'd assume that it would be slapped all over the bottle if it helped with rust, but it's not.

Are there any relatively cheap (~$5) oils/preventatives that you guys put on your EDCs to keep em in top shape?
 
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I would think WD40 is the most popular rust preventative for any metal. It's also cheap. There is also 3-in-One oil. I use both.
 
I've used WD-40, but it's hard to know, at least for me, when to reapply it. How long should I supposed it will last?

I've heard to just throw a coat on if you know your knife will be near water the next time you use it, but I rarely subject my knives to water purposely lol
 
When rust starts to form -- reapply. Otherwise, just wipe the blade off after each use, then give it some spa-action when you come home.
 
I no longer trust WD-40 or Hoppes. I bleach etched my Becker 9,used baking soda to neutralize, sanded and sanded and sanded some more, I coating the blade in WD-40 and it's still rusting. I don't know what else to do... I'm gonna sand it some more, reblue, sand and then coat it in bee's wax
 
I never use stainless knives and all my knives are rust free and I don't apply any rust preventative on them and use them every day. Just wipe dry when you're done. Otherwise I'm sure some gun oil will work
 
+1 on the Sentry Tuf Cloth... works like magic preventing rust, and it doesn't leave an oily mess to gunk up your knife. Simply wipe the knife down with the tuf cloth and let dry, that's all you need to do. If your Tuf Cloth starts to dry out after a bit, simply "recharge" it with a little mineral oil, I've been using the same tuf cloth for 5+ years.
 
Tuf Cloth is good, Hoppes 9 is good too. I don't like WD-40 because it gunks up and attracts dust/dirt. But it does prevent rust.

To the OP --> anything that coats the blade and acts as a barrier against water/air will prevent corrosion, so you don't have to look for that on the label. Heck, bacon grease will work. Except that it stinks and goes rancid. Mineral oil works, vaseline works, etc.

My personal favorite for storing knives is TW25B grease. There's several companies that make it, but it is designed and used by the military for long-term gun storage. It has the consistency and texture of cold bacon grease, but it is odorless, non-toxic, and will not spoil. For daily use knives, I'll rub a light coat of Hoppes 9.
 
For long-term storage, consider buying some VCI paper. The military and commercial gunmakers use it to pack rust prone items for storage. You basically wrap the item and the chemicals in the paper keep the corrosion at bay. I lined my toolboxes and knife storage case with it and have had zero corrosion despite living in a high-humidity area. This is now going on 4 years since I started doing it. You can find it in small quantities on that auction site.

As far as WD-40 goes, AFAIK it should be used for rust removal not rust prevention. I think it might even have the opposite effect and attract water! I wipe blades down with light machine oil (gun or sewing machine oil) or Starrett instrument oil.

VCI paper -

vcipaper2.jpg
 
WD I believe stands for Water Dispersal or something similar. Never used it on my knives though. I use the Tuff Cloth.
 
I've been using the Sentry Tuff-Cloth, both the Marine and the regular, since the mid-90s (iirc) and have never had rust issues with my knives or guns, and I live in SE Florida. I have some new cloths, but the original ones are still with me and still in use. I found that the need to reconstitute this cloth is infrequent. I recently purchased a Tuff Cloth refill bottle just to be on the safe side. There is also a Tuff Cloth applicator which is very handy for the nooks and crannies in both guns and knives. Good value imo because a little goes a long way and it is effective.
 
WD-40 doesn't attract or hold water. Spray the blade with it, then wet the blade and watch the water bead up & roll off. It's a mix of light solvent and light oil. As with any other oil, they don't mix with water, much less hold onto it; they can't. Dirt & grime mixed into it will trap moisture, however (as with any oil-based lube). Make sure everything's clean before using it. The 'WD' is a reference to 'Water Displacement', meaning the solvent in the WD-40 will displace water (flush it out), and the mineral oil in the other portion of the mix will fill & occupy the voids left behind, after the solvent evaporates (which takes only minutes). That's the 'rust prevention' part of the mix, in that rust can't form where the oil is present. Assuming, again, that everything is clean beforehand.

Keeping a blade clean & dry is the most effective way to keep it from rusting. During the day, just wipe the blade down periodically (or after each use) with a clean cloth or paper towel. At the end of the day, clean the blade with Windex or isoproply alcohol, before putting it away. If kept clean, almost any oil-based product can help protect it (including WD-40, which is all I've ever needed for my knives, and minimally, at that).
 
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Cool guys. I've never heard of VCI paper before... Another item to add to my list of "things to research" :)


OWE, I'll have to try Windex, I've just been using a paper towel with some water on it to clean the blade off lately
 
For over ten years now, I apply some Flitz polish and follow that up with the Tuf-Glide saturated Tuf-Cloth. I have yet to have any problems with rust on any of my knives. The 3-in-1 oil works great to lube/protect the pivots but I will also occasionally use some Tuf-Glide, on some knives, with the needle tip applicator bottle.
 
I'm interested in trying VCI paper; tools such as a micrometer that I bought came with a strip of VCI paper to protect it. I don't know if the chemicals emitted by VCI paper are food-safe; probably they are not?

For now, I store my non-use knives in Tupperware with a silica-gel tin-pack that adsorbs moisture. It has a color-changing button; when the color changes it means the pack has accumulated, moisture and you can then renew the pack by baking out the moisture in an oven. Basically, the silica-gel is just a porous form of silica (silicon oxide, or quartz/glass) that attracts and holds water (until you bake it off). Except for the color-change part(s), it's quite chemically inert (like glass).

Based on forum advice, I also use Tuff Glide. It goes on as a liquid, but dries to a waxy film. So, Tuff Glide is a dry lubricant. It seems to work well, although I haven't anything to really compare it to. (I have WD-40, and some bicycle-chain lubricant, but I have not tried those on my knives yet.)

The only two downsides to Tuff Glide are its odor when it is liquid (I think this is because of the solvent), and it is not FDA rated as food-safe. But then again, not many lubricants are FDA rated as food-safe. This is not the same as "non-toxic" which means almost nothing. From what I understand, "non-toxic" just means it does not contain a chemical on a very short and incomplete list of toxic/poisonous materials. Because that list is so incomplete,"non-toxic" is virtually meaningless. Here is an article about it from a website that is run by Consumer Reports:
http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/label.cfm?LabelID=131

If you don't need your knife to be food-safe, then Tuff Glide is very popular general lubricant. And as a dry lubricant that does not attract dust, I give it a thumbs up.

If you need your knife to be food-safe, then you might consider using food-grade mineral oil. I also believe that Ballistol makes some FDA rated food-safe lubricants. But I've not used either of these, so you might ask around for more info. I've heard that both of these are liquid lubricants (can attract dust) and don't have any fancy chemicals to prevent corrosion. So if you use them, probably you need to clean and re-lubricate your knife more frequently.

Sincerely,
--Anthony K. Yan
 
dustyzz said:
+1 on the Sentry Tuf Cloth... works like magic preventing rust, and it doesn't leave an oily mess to gunk up your knife. Simply wipe the knife down with the tuf cloth and let dry, that's all you need to do. If your Tuf Cloth starts to dry out after a bit, simply "recharge" it with a little mineral oil, I've been using the same tuf cloth for 5+ years.
Click to expand...







Thats awesome. I didnt know the tuf cloths would last that long. I will definately be picking one up now:thumbup:
 
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